The latest time-management casual game from G5 Entertainment is called Fix It Up: Kate’s Adventure. Centering around young Kate, who has just returned from college and needs to help bring her father’s auto-repair shop back up to standards after several employees have left, Kate’s Adventure continues as she moves on and seeks her own fortunes by expanding and branching out. How does it play? Let’s take a look!

The Hype: Get ready for a time management adventure that will keep you on your toes! Kate comes home from college to find her dad’s auto repair shop grappling with financial difficulties. But she’s not going to let the family business go down without a fight! So, roll up your sleeves and prepare for a variety of challenges in six exciting locations. You will find over 10 kinds of cars, several different workshops, and many hidden surprises in the game! Can you rebuild the family’s auto repair business? Expand the franchise from arid Nevada to glamorous Hollywood. Save the shop, fix up cool cars, and maybe even find true love in Fix-it-up: Kate’s Adventure HD! • 30 Challenging Levels in 6 Settings • 10 Types of cars • 12 Time and Money Challenges • Hours of time management fun! • 70 achievements to share with Facebook and Apple Game Center friends • Game Center Support

The Reality: The initial premise of Kate’s Adventure is fairly interesting – Kate is trying to help her father get his shop running again, which involves repairing and repainting cars, as well as a sales and rental service. This serves as the tutorial and half of the ‘demo’ portion you get with the free download before you have to use the in-app purchase to get the full version.

From her father’s shop Kate then moves on to establish her own business using an area from her uncle, who presents her with even more challenges and demands. Once you complete that area you move on and stake out an even larger and more demanding spot for your expanding business …and so on.

This is the general progression – you start a new area with a few necessary buildings, and then first need to build out the shop, then start accomplishing a number of goals. There is a timer and a green-yellow-red gauge that indicates how you are doing, with the goal of finishing everything during ‘Prime Time’. Doing so results in bonus money and an upgrade.

My first issue with the game was the realization that the ‘upgrades’ were purely cosmetic and had no impact on the game itself. You get lights, a fence, a nice yard, and so on. But that doesn’t impact your rental fees, your operating hours, how long between washing cars, and so on.

This immediately makes the incentive to obtain these upgrades purely personal motivation, which in turn reduces the time-management compulsions of the game. In most time management games you can gain upgrades that help you focus on a certain area to gain profit or cover up a weakness. Games like the Stand O’Food and Supermarket Mania series do this to wonderful effect.

Another thing missing that features prominently in games like Stand O’Food is the ability to queue actions. If you are awaiting spare parts, you can’t put a car into the repair shop while they arrive, instead it has to sit on the lot and you have to watch the color indicators for each bay and manually micromanage the flow. It feels like false urgency rather than a challenge.

My final issue is with the way goals are handed out. At the beginning of a mission you get a bunch of goals. As the game progresses you start getting new goals mid-stream while working on the others. Sometimes they just make the mission more challenging, but other times they completely alter how you need to approach the mission.

For example, if the primary goal is accumulating money, then you will focus on high-selling price cars. But if you suddenly need to have fully decked out a bunch of sedans, you will find yourself struggling to catch up. It is again a challenge that is more about changing how you do business rather than streamlining operational efficiency. This sort of ‘false challenge’ can be fun if it is rare since it throws you off balance, but when used regularly it takes the fun out of planning your way through a challenge.

I don’t want it to seem as if the entire experience is negative – Kate’s Adventure can be plenty of fun. It is not so difficult as to become stressful, and the actions and requirements are clear and straightforward enough that you won’t fail due to lack of goal clarity.

This is perhaps the most negative I have ever been in a review of a G5 game, as I have found them to generally be easily recommendable casual games in the hidden object and time management genres. However, whereas games like Stand O’Food represent the best of the time-management genre, Kate’s Adventure does not. Meaningless upgrades, useless rewards, punitive objective switching, and gameplay that feels more like ‘busy work’ than ‘time management’ all combine to result in a generic and forgettable overall experience that I would recommend passing over in place of some of the better genre games.

One final note: I snapped the screenshot above before using the in-app purchase to buy the full game. As noted, the full game is 6 locations, compared to 2 in the ‘demo’. So you get a third of the full game for free, which is very generous – and gives you a decent flavor for the experience. So if you are interested, definitely grab the free download and play it to completion prior to buying.

I have loved technology for as long as I can remember - and have been a computer gamer since the PDP-10! Mobile Technology has played a major role in my life - I have used an electronic companion since the HP95LX more than 20 years ago, and have been a 'Laptop First' person since my Compaq LTE Lite 3/20 and Powerbook 170 back in 1991! As an avid gamer and gadget-junkie I was constantly asked for my opinions on new technology, which led to writing small blurbs ... and eventually becoming a reviewer many years ago. My family is my biggest priority in life, and they alternate between loving and tolerating my gaming and gadget hobbies ... but ultimately benefits from the addition of technology to our lives!